Many events are held every day for which there is a desire on the part of both the event organizers and the event spectators to allow the spectators to have a more interactive role at the event. Such events include, for example, performance events and sporting events. These types of events are often very well attended by spectators who are passionate about the event, and who would most likely wish to become a part of the event in some way.
Conventionally, there are very few ways to safely and efficiently allow such spectator interactions. One model of interaction that is known is to provide a crowd at sporting event with colored placards to be held by individual audience members at designated seat locations. At designated moments, these audience members would hold up the placards, and a coordinated spread of the colors among the audience would allow the combination of the placards to form images or words in the audience. However, the distinct drawback with this approach is that the images or messages to be displayed in this manner must necessarily be very static in nature. In addition, a significant amount of planning and coordination must occur for even the simplest of displayed images/messages to be made in this manner. Moreover, this type of interaction cannot be adjusted “on the fly” to correct or re-form a display if something occurs to cause some or all of the placards to be misplaced or not placed.
Another type of audience interaction that is often seen at sporting events is for a crowd to perform the “wave”, which is a somewhat coordinated movement of individual sections of the audience to stand up and sit down in synchronism. The effect of this coordinated movement is that it provides for a visual wave-like movement of audience members to spread across the audience. This type of interaction, however, provides only a single type of visual result to be displayed to and by the audience. Moreover, this type of interaction may not be possible for audience members who are not physically capable of the standing and sitting actions that is required for this activity.
Another type of audience interaction that is common at musical concert events is for audience members to hold up a flame-based lighter device. When many audience members engage in this activity at the same time in a darkened music venue, the resultant display of lights often forms a pleasing visual appearance within the crowd. The attractiveness of this type of display is further enhanced when the audience members move or sway in synchronization to the music as they hold the flame-based lighters aloft. The obvious drawback with this type of interaction is the danger of allowing many audience members to use and wave around devices that produce open flames, especially when this activity is occurring in a crowed space.
Therefore, there is a need for an improved approach to implementing participatory interaction by audience members at an event. The improved approach should be safe and effective. The improved approach should also allow for dynamic interactions that can change over time.